


To Begin To Be Some Other Thing

by Filigranka



Category: James Bond (Movies), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: 3 lies 1 truth, Crossover, Dialogue Heavy, F/F, Implied Relationships, Politics, just a tad bit little politicing really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27096406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filigranka/pseuds/Filigranka
Summary: The invitation brings back memories. Andy accepts it.
Relationships: F!M (James Bond)/Andy | Andromache of Scythia
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8
Collections: Little Black Dress Flash 2020





	To Begin To Be Some Other Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GlassesOfJustice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassesOfJustice/gifts).



It’s a nice place. Clean. Warm. Beige walls, abstract paintings on them, furniture of simple design – so, decor in the general style of classy hotels – slipping  through one’s memory like a water. 

A very careful chosen scene, thinks Andy. Her bare feet make no noise when she checks the room. The floor is an imitation of the wood, then, but she can’t blame her host for this,  since wood is terrible  to maintain.  Cleaning , especially. 

When she walked in, there was a tea set at the desk and a baklava in the refrigerator. Vodka, Andy brought herself. She supposed she should stop drinking, when she no longer has an immortal liver, but this, this is an – occasion. A celebration, an offer, an invitation, a threat. Something warranting a drink.

Perhaps Andy shouldn’t have come. Perhaps it was her old recklessness – what can they do to me? What can they take away? – dying harder than her immortality. But the invitation felt almost too nice ( too familiar) to be a trap : sweets, a note and the key to this place, the place she knew, albeit some time ago. The décor was definitely different then, more in the old English country style, landscapes, roses and dark,  with heavy furniture everywhere.

The electric kettle and door alarm beep almost at the same time. Andy relaxes: people  with dangerous intentions tend not to purposefully alert  you to their presence. So when M comes in, Andy is half-sitting, half-lying  in  the armchair, her legs nonchalantly dangling in the air, and  sipping her tea. 

It's scorching hot – she has forgotten, again, that her tongue no longer heals immediately after such small burns. It means she won’t taste  the baklava properly and this is a pity, even if Andy  is sure she would be able to reconstruct every note from her memory, like in Marcel’s novels.

‘Don’t tell me,’ she says in a way of “welcome”, ‘It was all for your Queen. Or for England. Don’t tell me it was all your  _ idea _ .’

M tuts, taking off her coat. It’s a good coat – Andy had a lot of centuries to learn how to judge the quality of things – first, it’s wool, so it’s warm, warm enough for London, second, it’s length shows off how great M’s legs look, especially in dark brown boots,  and third, its deep, crimson red colour makes M  stand out in the crowd – but not in a way which would make her  seem  eccentric, and therefore memorable – and  it  complements her lipstick.

Perhaps Andy should start with all this. “M, my dear, I haven’t seen you in ages, you didn’t age at all’ – a lie: since they met, even Andy managed to get older, a little ‘your lipstick is great, tell me, where did you find these boots?’.

Screw this. Andy never liked this kind of small talk and she no longer has all the time in  the world for it.

‘I read the news,’ she adds, sharply. ‘Your government  took over—over— _ that _ pharma company.’

‘Great Britain is a  capitalist state, we do not…’

‘Your Minister of Foreign Affairs’ cousin  took over the company. Big difference. You know, for most of my life, the familial affairs of monarchs and lords were pretty closely tied to the state’s. And a cousin once removed is practically a brother, actually, he’d be called her brother in at least – let me count the languages…’

‘Things have changed, Andy.’

‘Things never really change. Except for fashion. And electricity, electricity is really nice.’ She gestures to the kettle. ’Your coat is nice, too, by the way.’

‘Thank you.’ M comes closer, sits down on the chair’s back, just above Andy’s shoulder. Her crème blouse is just like this room, neat, clean, official, very proper, and so is the  single string of pearls dangling from her neck. It’s just that Andy wants to do improper things with it, with her, like years—decades—ago, except…

‘When I said “don’t tell me”, I meant it rhetorically. If you did plan it all,  I'd prefer to know, now.’

‘I didn’t. We just improvised. It was a very fortunate turn of events, I won't deny, but  nothing more than a turn of events. I’d never take risks so recklessly, I’m not one of the zero-zeros.’

When M says “take risks” her eyes linger on Andy’s face. It's on purpose and they both know this. Andy finds this whole great espionage schtick irritating. 

‘But it’d be a lot less  reckless if I was still immortal. And you had no way to know—’

‘I improvised.’

‘But you keep tabs on me, close enough to know when and where to send an invitation?’

‘Of course I do. And your agent hasn’t been as subtle as he likes to think.’

‘He’s not  my agent.’

‘He does work for you. Takes your orders. Of course he’s one of yours.’ M waves a hand. ‘Either way, he isn’t the only one with iota of wit and access to the archives… And British archives are a lot older than his sources.’

My memory is an archive even  more ancient , thinks Andy.  _ I  _ am much older than this petty empire you swore you alliance to. And I am finally going to die.

‘I, we, have always known you’re exceptional. I told you so. You just  weren't… predisposed to believe me.’

Melancholy, acedia, depression, a dark night for  the soul… “A predisposition”. Why not. After the first millennia, everything shorter than a few centuries becomes just a mood.

‘As for the invitation…’ M takes the cup out of her hand and bends over the chair to put it back on the desk. She’s meticulous, her hands don’t waver, the desk stays clean; Andy suddenly remembers how M killed people with the same smooth, careful, not-a-ounce-of-energy-wasted grace. ‘Andy. I was simply worried.’

‘About the situation?’

‘About you.’

Ah. Of course. Andy swears her eyes roll  of their own accord. All humans have to live with their mortality and yet they’re suddenly so concerned when she  regains hers .

‘I feel great. The best I’ve felt in years, actually.’

‘You’ve got a purpose.’

‘And a sense of living, actually. Feeling of living. I’ve scalded my tongue on this tea, can you imagine? When I drink too much, I get a headache. When I eat too  much junk , my stomach hurts. I got a headache, a normal headache, just a few days ago. I want to a pharmacy, I asked for some pain killers, I took a pill – and it was  _ gone _ . It is all—it means so much to me. I forgot about it all. Now, it’s returned to me. I didn’t lose anything.’

‘Except for immortality.’

‘It’s vastly overpriced.’

‘You know best.’ There’s a deadly serious note in M’s voice and Andy realises her mistake.

M is still graceful, still beautiful, still dangerous… but also way past half of her life. Whatever she thinks about death, whatever she’s able to come to terms with before her end, advertising  from someone who suffered and enjoyed for millennia, and even now was still, physically, a good few decades  younger , wasn’t exactly diplomatic.

Forg e t how to mingle with non-immortals, Andy? Pretty unfortunate, when you’re one of them, again.

‘But I didn’t come to you to discuss metaphysics. My worry is much smaller and practical in scope.’ M’s fingers slip into and through Andy’s hair. ‘You might have hated your immortality, but you  were accustomed to it. Your fighting style, your reckless bravado, your taking care of the team, giving everything you  had all at once, in every mission, every day… I know people like you. Not immortal ones, like you now. I know how they end and I don’t wish it upon you. And if you don’t care, then think at least about your team. They rely on you. You can’t leave them so soon.’

Andy wants to snarl at this pretty motivational speech, but  it hits close to home. Unfortunately. She didn’t have to think about her injuries  for a long time, and now finds her knowledge about this subject seriously lacking. She tries to learn, rapidly— stitches , plasters, bandages, first aid, fighting styles which happen to protect the torso —but it’s a lot and old habits die hard. She still feels  the urge to throw herself on every grenade, more or less metaphorically.

‘I can help. I have resources. Trainers, gyms, technicians. People who are  sworn to secrecy and already know enough confidential information to be blasé about an ex-immortal. I have dozens of people committed  solely to inventing tech to keep our agents alive and untouched. If anything can help you transition—and get back to the field—I’ll  provide it.’

‘Are you  offering me a job?’

‘Of course not. I know you too well to delude myself  into thinking you’d take it. What I offer comes from a  place of admiration. And a deep conviction you have been doing a lot of good work. Very, very good work. The world needs you.’

It’s a nice thing to hear. Nice, clean, probably partly true. Just like this room is nice and warm, and something in which Andy would – any human would – gladly settle into. But she was not quite human for too long to allow herself that indulgence.

‘Then what,’ She grabs M by her collar, tugs her closer to herself; the pearl necklace falling on her neck ‘do you think your Queen and country would get out of this? Honestly.’

M’s face is stony, the sigh she lets out—only exasperated.

‘From the purely operational perspective, like I said, your agent isn’t so subtle and your last action, after a little effort on my part, proved to be highly beneficial to our country. I do believe supporting you in your work is in best interest of Great Britain. At worst, you bring a… chaotic element. And chaos is a very useful tool.’ She ignores Andy’s fist in her blouse and just reaches to tuck her hair back behind her ear. ‘But I mean it when I say I don’t want you to die because you forgot you can’t spit out bullets anymore. I've lost my people to similar causes. It’s always a waste.’ There’s no contempt, only pain in M’s words. ‘The offer, it’s… a gift, from one mortal woman to another. I just need some cover to put into agency’s budget.’

Her eyelashes are so fair, almost white. Andy isn’t sure why she suddenly notices it, why it is suddenly the most important thing. This, and the cool pearls on her neck. This, and how the wrinkles in the corners of M’s eyes rise up when she smiles, like now. 

It's not an honest smile, too polite and tense, all muscle memory locking it into sarcasm or a meaningless  social custom. But it’s a smile, an invitation to share a joke, and Andy knows it’s as good as she’s going to get.

‘I’ll think about it,’ she says, relaxing her hand, only to take the necklace and slowly, deliberately  trail her fingers along the pearls, finding the lock, opening it, and letting the beads fall down between her own breasts. ‘But for now, when we’re both together again, may we focus on—’ oh, Andy can’t believe she’s using this silly, cliché, cheesy, terrible line again—‘the _other_ , smaller kind of death?’

**Author's Note:**

> <3 <3 <3 to my you-know-who for beta!
> 
> Title's from Ovid, from 15. book:
> 
> "Then to be born is to begin to be   
> some other Thing we were not formerly   
> what we call to Die is not t'appear   
> be the Thing that formerly we were."


End file.
